Like Bluffcityguy said, JAGs and other Restricted Line O’s have plenty of responsibility for E’s. They probably have divisions and departments just like anywhere else, and they’re filled with O’s and E’s that have to be managed. And, like he said, they cannot command operational/combative commands. They are simply not eligible. You can toss out extremis situations, and the answer is who knows? A ship getting shelled, where every O except the Doc is dead… does the Doc take command? He could certainly try, but no one is under any obligation to listen to a word he says when it comes to fighting the ship. The chain of command should work its way down the lowest URL man left standing, even if it’s a Petty Officer, who then can (I think) order any RL line O around.
Going back to the OP: what about graduates from VMI, The Citadel, etc?
What he said.
I suspect that in a truly extreme situation like the one posed upthread (a bunch of enlisted and one staff corps officer break from a POW camp) it would come down to that magic quality of “leadership” vice the strict legalities of the situation; if the staff corps officer was a competent leader he might get the enlisteds to follow his direction even though they’re not obligated to. Then again, if the officer is incompetent at leadership, one of the enlisteds is going to be functionally “in command”, whether or not he is legally.
Cheers,
bcg
My understanding (someone please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the cadets at institutions like VMI and The Citadel are in ROTC while students there. They have an option to take a commission in the armed services after graduation, but aren’t obligated to.
Cheers,
bcg
I did not know that you could give up you line commission to accept a limited duty comission. In fact we were told that once a line officer always a line officer. Because a line officer could serve as a lawyer in the JAG department. But if you have known people who have done just that then I will not argue, you have been there.
Citadel and VMI have no formal ties to the military beyond having ROTC programs. Their grads who are not on ROTC scholarships can do whatever they want when they graduate.
And those in the Marine Band are particularly out of step with their fellow Leathernecks…
http://www.marineband.usmc.mil/career_information/learn_more/recruit_training.htm
See also:
In the past a lot more schools had all men in ROTC for 2 years. One of them was NC State where I went in the late 70s, by then they dropped the ROTC requirement.
I worked with a former Naval officer and he said all the VMI and Citadel grad Navy officers he knew were sort of nutjobs. He did not know why that was. But maybe he just ran into the bad ones.
Small sample size issue in my case (sample size = 1), but back when i was attending Naval Justice School I lived in the same apartment complex next door to a Citadel USN grad who was attending the Surface Warfare Officer Basic Course. We socialized over weekends and holidays, and carpooled to NTC Newport. Seemed to be a nice enough guy.
One thing he did say that I’ve never been able to verify was that so many Citadel grads elected to receive Marine Corps commissions that the school was informally known as “The US Marine Corps Academy”. I’ve been a bit dubious myself, but I don’t have any grounds to say one way or the other…
Cheers,
bcg
This is a likely place to tell this story, not really off-topic, just severely anecdotal. I can make two statements that make most military folks either say ‘no way’ or just shake their heads (“Goddam Army”).
- I’ve been a member of a Special Forces unit.
- I’ve never been to basic training (or OCS).
Hear me out. I knew I’d wanted the military as a career from a young age. I aced the ASVAB at my first opportunity, then started shopping. Recruiters were hot for me. (Is SGT Swartz around?) The opportunity that most intrigued me was the Delayed Entry Program, through the reserves. Called ‘Rep 63’, you were assigned to your eventual unit during the deferred period. I enlisted on my first day eligible, seventeen years and three months IIRC. I drilled with my assigned unit, the 297th intelligence attachment, during my deferred period. I was the first they’d had, and no one knew quite what to do with me. They assigned one ex-ranger to look after me. I called him Ranger Dave. I was somewhere between unit mascot and everyone’s kid brother. The median age of the soldiers in the unit was 38! Officer heavy, we were. My MOS was to be 98G(9), Voice Intercept, Russian language. I had orders for after H.S. that would keep me busy for a couple of years Basic,AI,Jump,‘Q’ school, and also the Language institute at Monterey. Man, a high school senior and authorized to wear a Special Forces uniform. I thought I was hot nine ways from Sunday.
But the recruiters were still hot for me. I was poached. Another recruiter asked about my plans, I thought I’d do college after all this training on the G.I. bill. He said “How about we send you to college now, pay for it, give you a living allowance, then commission you?” I thought about it, then said “OK.” I was transferred from the reserve unit to R.O.T.C. on a scholarship. Big mistake.
After hanging with the ‘real thing’ for nine months, the ROTC upperclassmen failed to impress me. I also tested straight into MAT200 level courses, and they kicked my ass. I was used to breezing through with minimal effort, getting A’s and B’s. Now I was expected to buckle down and work. I got a ‘D’ in calculus, by the grace of the instructor bumping up a few points so I could keep the scholarship. I told one of the instuctors I thought this really wasn’t for me. He talked me into staying one more semester, I could do that then quit with no penalty, paying back the scholarship was only required if you started the third semester. I agreed, and arranged to get a dorm room so I could buckle down and avoid distractions. Trying to move into the dorm room using my motorcycle was another mistake. I was severely, stupidly overloaded and shattered my elbow when the wheels locked up in protest and threw me to the asphalt at 50 mph.
I missed the 2nd semester with my arm in traction, but they allowed me to make up some classes during the summer session. I was doing grueling PT on my arm, but at the end of all the medical deferment they could give me, I still had a disqualifying lack of range of motion in my right arm. I resigned on medical grounds, and that was that.
Any day now, I’ll figure out something else I want to be when I grow up. I’m 40.
When I was in, Warrants were off, then on, then off again. Like the whole Commodore / Rear Admiral Lower Half thing, I think the Navy couldn’t make up its mind. I understand Army Warrants were more stable – the program, that is.
I googled NESEP and so far as I can tell, it was discontinued in 1978.
Clearly holding a four-year degree or higher is no guarantee of officer status. I don’t know if that used to be more or less true, but I suspect so, back in the days when not nearly as many people in general had such credentials.
About ten years ago I heard about a special Army unit, the U.S. Army History Battalion, comprising only three soldiers. Yes I did say soldiers, as in mid level to fairly senior NCOs, and at least one of them had a history Ph.D. But he wasn’t an officer though you’d think in that assignment if anywhere the degree would earn you that.
Well, once upon a time a high school diploma could get you a fairly well paid entry level job, and a bachelors degree would get you a more highly paid job. Nowadays, a high school diploma gets you bupkis, and a bachelor’s degree is required for just about any job that pays better than the ones where you say “You want fries with that?”
I always got the impression that doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc., got commissions because officer pay was the only way to give them pay commensurate with what the civilian market would pay them. Historians’ pay isn’t nearly as much (for all but the most prestigious chairs at the best universities).
Cheers,
bcg
To amplify what Bluffcityguy said, line officers transfer to staff corps all the time. When this is approved, their designator is changed, and they start wearing staff corps insignia instead of line officer insignia.
In many cases, the approval is accompanied by a reduction in rank. This is not intended to penalize the transferee, but to give them a chance to “catch-up” to their new peers and be more competitive during promotion selection in the new community. (Promotion boards are community-specific.)
A brand-new JAG or MSC (Medical Service Corps) officer with the rank of Lieutenant Commander (O-4) is not very competitive with other O-4’s who have been in the community for 6+ years. So they will sometimes reduce them in rank by one or two grades, allowing them to advance back to their old ranks after a few years and to gain experience in the new community. (The lower the rank, the less competitive the promotion board).
I’ve seen this happen twice. In one case, I knew a line officer Navy Lieutenant (O-3) who transferred to MSC, and was reduced in rank to Lieutenant, Junior Grade (O-2). After a year or two, he was promoted back to LT.
In another case, I knew a Lieutenant Commander (O-4) submarine line officer–he was actually the Engineer Officer on a nuclear sub–who decided he wanted to go to medical school. He was approved to go to USUHS (the U.S. military’s medical school), and was transferred to the Navy’s Medical Corps as an Ensign (O-1)! He was a real jerk, especially to one LT on board my submarine, and we all told the LT that he needed to make a trip down to Bethesda some time, and look up the former LCDR. You know, just to say hi. 
Actually, NROTC students are required to go through and pass an abbreviated 6-week OCS course called “Bulldog.” It’s usually done between the junior and senior years of college.
I’m not sure about Naval Academy graduates, but I don’t believe that they have to do this.
Nitpick–in the Navy, Staff Corps Officers are not the same thing as Limited Duty Officers (LDOs).
LDOs are former senior enlisted personnel (or warrant officers), who were considered very highly skilled in their Navy job, and selected to become a commissioned officer.
Unrestricted Line (URL) Officers can request transfer to become Staff Corps Officers or Restricted Line Officers (discussed below). They cannot become LDOs.
The Restricted Line Officer is yet another category of Navy officer. These are line officers that are not eligible for Command at Sea. (Only URL officers are eligible for Command at Sea.) Restricted Line Officers include Engineering Duty Officers and Naval Intelligence Officers.
I may be misremembering here (incipient senility is a bitch), but IIRC officers selected to go to law school on the Navy’s dime had to be within a certain portion of their careers (seniorish LTJG to juniorish LT) so that they would fit right in with their JAGC peers on law school graduation and assignment to Naval Justice School.
I recall a line LCDR who was approved for a released-time law school program (the officer is on active duty with pay, but has to pay for law school him/herself) who had the same thing happen to him/her. I forget what they did about his pay; I don’t recall that he suffered much (certainly service time counted for pay purposes; they may have even done something to keep his pay at the same amount notwithstanding the reduction on rank), but I wasn’t privy to the details.
Heheheheheh. Revenge is sweet!
Cheers,
bcg
:smack: D’oh! Now that you mention that, I remember it now.
ISTR that Academy midshipmen on the Marine track do the same thing during one of their summer “cruises”, too. I don’t have time today to muck about the USNA website to confirm/disconfirm that, though.
Cheers,
bcg
That is a change then. My dad was commissioned directly as a LDO, Engineering Duty only. His boards did not have the stat but a prop on them. He never served a day as an enlisted man. NOw that was years ago so it may be different now.